If I wanted to start up a website like a news website, what would be the best way of managing old pages? I simply don’t have the experience to install and manage a full “back end” and can’t afford to pay anyone to do that job just yet.
I wouldn’t want to let a Freeway site grow endlessly but I still want the old pages to float on the server to be accessed by the public via search engines.
If, each day, I were to delete the pages from the Freeway site, cancelling any links to those pages, then upload afresh, would the old pages stay on the server?
On a slightly different tack, does anyone have any experience of what happens to affiliation adverts on “floating” old pages.
If you publish a page from your Freeway document, then delete that page in the Freeway document, Freeway will delete the now-missing page from the server to conserve disk space the next time you publish.
It’s not a good idea in principle to ever delete a page once you publish it and link to it. I’m not saying it isn’t done – I see 404 results all the time – but the idea of the Web as a connected space of documents sorta demands that there be some permanence to those documents once they’ve been published.
As far as your advertisements go, if they are on the page, and they link somewhere (see above) then they just continue to work, right?
I’m not sure you’re going to be happy with this answer, but this is going to become a management nightmare pretty quickly without a content management system. Freeway can manage truly large sites, but the interface breaks down (you try scrolling through a list of 400 possible link targets) fairly quickly.
A content management system brings a different set of constraints to the puzzle, though, chief among them the need to standardize page layout and site structure.
But I would give a CMS another look and more thought. If you are setting out to publish news, you really want to be able to manage the “back issues” and have thought about how to do that before you publish your first month’s worth of content.
Thank you, Walter. You’re right - I didn’t want to hear that, but better now than later! I’ve taken a look at Expression Engine and the EE actions available for Freeway and I’m totally puzzled. Even the videos on the EE site aren’t aimed at beginners. I’ve tried Googling for an easy explanation but everything seems to demand a leap in knowledge. Do you have any pointers to sites that may help?
W
EE is one option, there are other systems you might want to try as
well: sNews has been shown to work really well with Freeway, and there
are Actions for TinyCMS and WebYep, from Joe Muscara and Max Izzat
respectively. A quick search in the web archive of this list will turn
up links to these and more.
EE is a very large gun, and will do a fabulous job of this type of
project. But there are smaller guns that might get the job done
without the overhead.
On Mar 18, 2010, at 2:08 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
EE is one option, there are other systems you might want to try as
well: sNews has been shown to work really well with Freeway, and
there are Actions for TinyCMS and WebYep, from Joe Muscara and Max
Izzat respectively. A quick search in the web archive of this list
will turn up links to these and more.
EE is a very large gun, and will do a fabulous job of this type of
project. But there are smaller guns that might get the job done
without the overhead.
I’ve used this one though not with FW but it would seem a fairly
straightforward approach to integrate it, but I may be wrong. It
strikes a nice balance between features and ease of use; not as robust
as EE but way more feature-rich than WY or other lightweight options.
I also agree about sNews.
I forgot to mention one other lightweight CMS that may fly under the
radar, and that would be a shame. Perch http://grabaperch.com/. I
recently installed this for someone and it’s a triumph of simplicity
and elegance. And, despite it being lightweight, surprisingly flexible
too. My first choice for an easy-to-use CMS. The cost is roughly
comparable to WebYep but I find it a better tool all around.
I’ve used this one though not with FW but it would seem a fairly
straightforward approach to integrate it, but I may be wrong. It
strikes a nice balance between features and ease of use; not as
robust as EE but way more feature-rich than WY or other lightweight
options. I also agree about sNews.